


Invisable in the Darkest Hour

by hellsyeah



Series: Original Stuff [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Demons, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:52:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsyeah/pseuds/hellsyeah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel is a college student, he doesn't get out much, and he's never been that interested in doing so. Until at least a new girl moves in next door and students start disappearing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Invisable in the Darkest Hour

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my Creative Writing class. It's in first person, yes, but that's because my professor wanted us to try different styles of writing.

 

My name is Gabriel. I’m a sophomore in college, I’m 19, and I’m majoring in music theory. I’m a relatively unknown guy but I like it that way, I’d rather spend my days in my room composing music or reading, and I don’t go out much, only when there’s a music festival, I have to do something for class, or I just feel like going for a walk. I’m not actually very important at the start of this story, but I think it’s better you know who I am now, because I might not be the same person later on.

 

 The day Jill moved in next door I didn’t think much of it, plenty of students switched rooms or moved in late. Honestly, I didn’t even see her until a week later; she seemed to spend all her spare time out and about. It was September and the days were still filled with summer heat so a young college girl spending her time outside wasn’t shocking or a big deal and I ignored it. Her dorm room was the one to the right of my room, directly next to my side, so I could hear her when she came in at night. She always came in before 1 AM, so I figured her to be the studying type, a girl who wanted to get enough sleep at night and not spend her nights partying. I was on my way back to my room when I saw her walking out of her room.

She was wearing an old brown leather jacket that looked like it had been to hell and back, a black tank-top, stylish low-cut jeans, and black ankle boots. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face with a red bandana. Her eyes shown in the dull lights of the dorm hallway, a dark brown just darker than her skin; she was beautiful and my steps faltered embarrassingly but she didn’t appear to even notice me and just walked passed me to the stairs.

“Dude, she’s fucking hot,” My roommate, Malcolm, said as he ran around the room getting ready for his date that night. Malcolm went out a lot, let’s just say he was popular with the ladies, and that night was no different. I looked up from where I was transposing music into bass clef and raised an eyebrow at him as he tugged on a pair of tightest jeans I’d ever seen a man attempt to put on his body.

“Your date?” It was better to humor him, even though I really didn’t care. He paused in his efforts to button the offending denim.

“Well, yeah,” He shrugged, and another ounce of respect I had for him was gone, the asshole thought girls were toys. “But I’m talking about the chick that moved in next door.” This actually sparked curiosity in me, I’d thought about our neighbor often. I didn’t say anything but I kept looking at him, watching as he slicked his blonde hair back after he tugged on a black deep-V neck. “Apparently she just moved here from India,” which made sense, she had the beauty of an Indian Goddess, “And her name’s Jill. I kinda expected something more, I don’t know, foreign,” He mused, as he motioned with one hand. I scowled, wondering not for the first time how I had ended up with Mal as my roommate.

“Jill could be short for something,” I responded. He just shrugged as he checked himself over in the mirror again before sitting on his bed to pull on his shoes. I was amazed at how he managed to reach his feet in those pants.

“Her name could be Steve and it wouldn’t matter. What matters is that she’s hot.” He stood up again once his shoes were tied and grinned over at me. “Now, I’ve got a date with one of the cheerleaders, don’t exactly remember which one, but I guess I’m gonna find out.” He saluted at me as he walked out the door, calling over his shoulder, “And don’t wait up for me!”

“Aye-aye, Captain tight-pants!” I called back. I leaned my head back against the wall and sighed. Jill was home, I could tell because I could hear her shuffling around and she didn’t have a roommate. I tried to focus on my transposing but there was an odd scratching noise coming from Jill’s room and try my hardest I couldn’t tune it out. It sounded like wings beating against the walls, like a bird trapped in a room that can’t find the window to get back out. There were no pets allowed in rooms so unless she was breaking dorm rules, I had no explanation of these scratching sounds.

It was after that when I started watching her. Maybe it sounds a bit creepy but there was something about her that drew me, but not in an “I’m attracted to her” way, something was off about her. Jill sat close to the others on the quad, yet never with them. She kept to herself while staying included in their activities. She was never rude to people when they spoke to her, but she never attempted to start conversations herself. To anyone else, at first glance she seemed to be one of them, the popular and social groups, her jeans were name-brand like theirs, her shirts looked expensive, her makeup was perfect, and her hair was pulled into a perfectly messy bun on the top of her head. The only thing seemingly out of place was the leather jacket; she never took it off, no matter how hot it was, no matter what she was wearing beneath it. The brown leather was scratched and faded from years of use and it looked like it was older than she was, possibly a hand-me-down from someone in her family, maybe a boyfriend, I didn’t know.

It was odd though, how she always went to their functions and parties, I gained this information through Mal, I never went myself, but she never drank and she never went home with anyone. Her choices weren’t bad by any means, but Mal would talk about how she would stand off to the side against the wall, just watching people. He said it was unnerving. She was always the first one to leave the parties, and always alone. Eventually, people stopped asking to dance or if she wanted a drink. They started to ignore that she was there. They all assumed she was harmless.

Two weeks later it started. The school year was barely two months in and the scratching sounds had stopped, not completely, but they only lasted a few minutes and never got loud enough to bother me. The night the first person disappeared I was trying to finish up another transposition for class when the scratching next door picked up. A few minutes later I heard a window open, the dorm buildings were old and everything squeaked when it was opened, and the scratching stopped. A picture of an escaping bird settled into my mind for a moment before I shook my head and forgot about it. This night was different however, because four hours after the original scratching sounds, they returned. It had never happened twice in one night so when the sounds of fluttering wings echoed through the walls I had to press my ear to the wall separating our rooms. It was quiet this time, only lasting a few seconds. The window shut a few seconds after the fluttering silenced and the room became silent once again.

The next morning is when I heard the news. Jake, star basketball player and well known face on campus, was missing. His roommate said Jake always came home early when he had a game the next day but Jake didn’t show up. He didn’t show up to the game and he didn’t show up back on campus at all. All of his things were still in his dorm room so there was no explanation. At least until around a week later, Jake’s body was found a few miles away in the park, in a shallow grave, drained of blood.

The disappearances kept happening from then on, around every two weeks, the scratching sounds would echo next door, leave, return a few hours later, and the next morning, someone was missing. The only pattern was that it was always a well-known person on campus that disappeared and when their bodies were ultimately found they were drained of blood. They were never found in the same place and there were no open wounds to explain how their bodies were drained, the police were stumped.

Everyone who had ever come in contact with any of the missing students was questioned, myself included, about where they were the nights of the disappearance, how well they knew any of the missing people, and the officers were even asking about our knowledge of biology. No one had any answers.

I was suspicious of Jill the moment the murders started but no one was ever going to believe me. I had not proof, only the mysterious noises from her room on the nights the students disappeared and I knew, anything I might say had the potential to turn back around on me. I had no alibi, if I became a suspect I had no one to vouch for me. I was in my room each night these things happened and that made me an easy target. Who was going to believe a loner when they said they were suspicious of another student because of unexplained sounds no one else has heard? No one.

I was at a crossroads. I started to get paranoid. Whenever I walked passed Jill’s room I hugged as close to the opposite wall as I could, I never walked anywhere alone without my hand in my pocket fisted around my pocketknife, and I jumped at every call of a bird and every flutter of wings that flew by. I was seeing things, shadows of wings stretching across the walls of my dorm, windows opening and shutting out of the corners of my eyes, people standing in places where they wouldn’t be when I turned my focus onto them, and her, Jill, in hallways, standing outside windows, standing on buildings; I was going insane.

“I talked to Jill the other day,” I looked up from my computer as Mal came into the room, throwing his bag onto his bed and falling onto it afterwards. If he noticed the way my hands gripped into the bed sheets he didn’t mention it.

“Okay?” My voice shook with the effort it took not to tell him to stay away from her.

“Yeah, she’s super-hot, and is stressing about the loss of so many students. I offered to console her.” He had a cocky smirk on his face while he pulled his shirt over his head and kicked off his shoes.  Again, I didn’t answer him and just waited. “And you know what she said? She said that she’d like that.”

“You got a date with her?” I was confused; from what I had heard she never agreed to go out with anyone and turned everyone down.

“Hell yeah dude, we’re going out tonight,” Mal fist pumped toward the ceiling. I congratulated him the best I could without freaking out. I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to go out but I had no proof.

Malcolm left to go out with her at nine; they met in the hallway outside and were going out to the drive-in. When he left the room I stayed on my bed, leaned against the wall and waited for something to happen next door. It was hours later, well past midnight, when I heard Jill’s window open. Jill doesn’t have a roommate. Her door had never opened and I hadn’t heard either her or Mal out in the hallway. Yet, the window opened next door, and in fluttered the scratching of the wings.

The scratching only happened once that night and Malcolm never came home.

They found Malcolm’s body three days later in the woods a mile or so behind the drive-in. The police questioned me the day after Malcolm’s date with Jill and originally let me off the hook so that they could question her. The day his body was found I was brought to the station in handcuffs, drug from my dorm room, and thrown into an interrogation room with a burly officer who desperately needed to brush his teeth.

“Richard Gabriel Milligan, 19, sophomore, birthdate January 23, 1994,” Officer Reed read off of a file in his hand. I fidgeted in my chair and gripped the table tightly once Reed un-cuffed my hands from behind my back. I didn’t answer him because he didn’t ask a question. He stared down at me from where he stood on the other side of the table, his green eyes dull and bored, “Tell me again what you were doing the night of Malcolm Johnson’s disappearance?”

“I was in our room,” I made sure I kept eye contact with him as much as I could, “finishing a paper that was due the next day.” Reed closed the folder in his hand and dropped it onto the table but I didn’t follow the paper as it fell.

“And what did Malcolm say he had plans to do that night?” The officer’s voice sounded as bored as he looked.

“Mal had a date. They were going out to the drive-in.” My palms were sweating but I didn’t move to wipe them on anything because I needed to keep up a semi-calm appearance.

“A date? With who?” The officer leaned his hip against the table and started examining his nails like he wasn’t even listening to me.

“Jill, our neighbor.” My heart rate sped up, “Am I under arrest here?” Reed shook his head.

“No, just following up on some leads.” Officer Reed gathered up the folder again and straightened up. He walked to the door and motioned for me to follow him. I walked silently behind him with my hands pressed to my sides. I followed him into another room. This one was completely empty except for a long table which sat under a large window the length of one wall of the room. The other room was empty and I recognized, from multitudes of crime shows on TV, it was one of the observation rooms. Officer Reed pulled out a chair for me and sat me down at the table where I could see the entirety of the other room. “I need you to identify the girl your roommate went out with that night. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, yes, I can do that.” I nodded slowly, a little confused but willing to do whatever I had to do to get out of this. Officer Reed nodded and moved around to the light switch by the door and flooded the room we were in into complete darkness. I had to blink against the brightness of the light shining through the window in front of my face. The door of the other room opened and a uniformed officer walked through followed by six women. All the women varied in height and hair color, but they were all young and beautiful. Only two of the women in the line-up had dark hair and eyes, and only one of them had on a faded leather jacket. My hand rose to point but I lowered it and looked over at Officer Reed, calling out the number on the plaque around her neck. Reed nodded and left the room, a few minutes later the room on the other side of the window emptied out.

“Alright kid, you’re good to go.” Officer Reed said as he came through the door. I stood up and walked into the hallway.

“That’s it? I don’t understand why I had to point her out,” I walked at Reed’s side this time. He laughed slightly and shook his head, leading me to the front desk at the very front of the station and handing some papers over to the officer sitting behind the desk.

“Well, several of the victims’ friends said that the victim had a meeting or date, or had been last seen with Miss Jill, and since your roommate was the last victim we wanted you to be the one to point her out.” Reed clapped a hand on my shoulder and turned me back toward the doors, “do you need a ride back to campus, kid?”

“No, I’ll manage.” I waved over my shoulder as I left the building. Later that night, sitting in my room I thought about what Officer Reed said. Every victim had been seen with her last, or at least had plans to see her before they disappeared. A murderer. She was a murderer. My neighbor. The hot foreign exchange student was a murderer. The thought was on repeat in my head for hours. I had been suspicious of her, yes, but now it was confirmed. I rolled onto my side to face the wall between our rooms, partially to listen for anything and partially because I couldn’t stand to look over and see the empty side of the room that used to be full of Mal’s stuff.

Her room was quiet. I wasn’t really expecting anything to happen anyway, seeing how Jill was supposed to be in custody. So when her window slammed open? I jumped and fell off my bed. My head hit the floor and I groaned in pain. My head was pounding when I sat up and the fluttering sound that usually followed the window opening was growing. It kept growing until it was louder than I had ever heard it before, blocking out any other sounds in my room. I clapped my hands over my ears and scooted back from the wall until I was pressed against Mal’s old bed. My eyes were slammed shut and watering; I felt like the room was vibrating under the force of the noise. Then it stopped.

My window opened.

My eyes shot open and I looked over at the windowsill, sitting there, a shadow against the dark sky, was a bird. It was beautiful, sleek, and black. I was terrified. The bird moved. It jumped from the windowsill onto my desk then walked across to leap onto the mattress. The bird shifted then, the air around it seemed to ripple and pulse, and the scratching, fluttering noises I had been hearing all year started again. They originated from the bird and spread around the room. I had to clap my hands around my ears again and slam my eyes shut. When the noise stopped I was hesitant to remove my hands and open my eyes.

She was there. Jill was perched on the edge of my mattress staring at me with wide brown eyes. She was stunning and horrifying all at the same time. She leaned forward with her hands on her knees and tilted her head to the side. Like a bird of prey. I choked on my breaths and tried to press farther away.

“Gabriel Milligan is not your given name!” I flinched as she shrieked. She lunged across the room to where I was and pressed her hands on either side of the bedframe behind my head.

“W-what?” I surprised myself by saying anything at all. She leaned closer to me and I pressed painfully back into the wood. Her brown eyes darkened to black, spreading from her pupils until no color was left in her eyes, just empty black holes.

“What is your name?” She sounded angry and yet, desperate. I shook my head. I didn’t understand why she needed to know my name. She opened her mouth in a snarl and I could see rows of needle sharp teeth. She grabbed my wrist and yanked it up, I screamed when I heard it snap. I didn’t feel the pain at first until her grip tightened around the newly broken bones. She opened her mouth wider and I watched in horror as she pulled my limp wrist closer to her mouth. She never bit me. She couldn’t. It was like she hit a force field and couldn’t get her teeth into my skin. She screamed in frustration and violently threw my wrist out of her grip. “I need to know your given name!” I whimpered in pain and cuddled my swelling wrist to my chest. She couldn’t bite me if she didn’t know my name.

“Never,” I managed to choke out. Jill backed away from me, leaning back on the balls of her feet she snarled again, teeth bared and eyes black.

“All the others were so simple,” She moved further back again until she was sitting on the edge of my mattress again. I didn’t dare relax. She looked down at her hands and mumbled, “but no one talks about you. You know what I am.” She moved again, standing to her full height and coming to stand over me. One of her hands gripped my chin and forced me to look up at her, “yet I cannot feed from you! You need to die!” Her grip tightened until I knew there would be bruises where her fingers were. I struggled under her grip but she didn’t move and her expression stayed blank. She released my jaw after another minute and stared at her hands again. “I can’t kill you.”

I couldn’t kill her either. We were at a standoff. I had no way of knowing how to get rid of her and as long as she never knew my name I’d be safe. The air around her started to shift again and I could hear the humming of her wings. She was going to change. I couldn’t let her go out and kill more people, especially if I had to bare the guilt of knowing who she was. I racked my brain for anything about demons, or creatures, anything to get rid of her for good. Movies, TV shows, books, anything that held even the slightest hint of a solution.  _Holy water._   _Prayer. Salt. Sage._ I didn’t have holy water and I didn’t have sage. I’d never read the Bible or been religious, so any accurate prayers were not going to happen. I remembered the salt on a shelf beside my desk, left over from multiple cooking failures, and lunged for it. It was difficult to grip and get the top off with a broken wrist but I managed. The scratching sound was enveloping the room and Jill’s eyes were unfocused, staring at the wall opposite while the area around her pulsed.

“Our father who art in Heaven,” I stumbled over anything I knew, and gathered salt into my palm, “repel this evil entity from this plane,” I tossed the salt over her and she screamed. The shifting in the air stopped and she turned to face me, eyes blazing behind the black shield. She lunged for me and I quickly held up the salt coated hand so that she impacted it first. She screamed in agony and fell back onto the floor. “Father, hear me, send this demon back to hell,” She screamed again, the sound harsh and labored as she withered at my feet. I picked up the container of salt again and tipped it over her on the floor, watching as her body smoked and dissolved, not unlike a slug. I choked and looked away, willing myself not to puke at the disturbing site. I coughed into my elbow and turned back to her. Her screams were quieting down and I could focus again. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I banish you. Amen.”

It wasn’t the best prayer but it was all I could do and the way Jill screamed and arched on the floor it seemed affective. Her back arched off the floor and her head went back, her eyes flashing bright, a black plume of smoke leaking out of her mouth and flying out of the window. The smoke disappeared out of the room and Jill’s body hit the floor flat again. The body looked burnt in places, even the clothes on her body were ripped and shriveled that had been set on fire. I collapsed onto the floor a few feet away, dropping the salt container onto the floor and pulling my knees to my chest and rested my swollen wrist on top of my knees.

What felt like hours later, but what had actually been just a few minutes, the door to my dorm room slammed open and uniformed officers ran in. They had apparently been banging on the door for a few minutes but I hadn’t heard them. My eyes stayed focused on Jill’s body as they officers pulled me from the floor violently. The only sound I made was a strangled gasp as the officer’s hand wrapped around my broken wrist. I didn’t fight them as they led me out of the building and forced me into the back of a cop car.

My cell isn’t the most luxurious cell on death row, but it’s been my home for the last four years, after a year if being in the normal cells I was moved here. I don’t have a cellmate. The guards think I’m a danger to the other inmates. I think I had a cellmate for the first year I was in here, but they never lasted long. I think I unnerved them. All I do is stare out the tiny window at the back of my cell from the top bunk. I don’t remember the last time I said anything, or eaten anything. I hum sometimes. I don’t know what song it is, but the bird on the windowsill likes when I hum. I think she’s waiting for something. She won’t tell me.


End file.
